To be honest, I almost dropped this course on the first week of class. I had originally taken the class thinking that we were studying human physiology but we ended up studying anthropology. The class material was not what I expected, the students were mostly all older than me, and my professor seemed like a mad genius. I was beyond intimidated.
However, after a quarter of hanging onto every word that my genius professor said and slaving away on the essays that we were assigned, I was really glad that I took this class. The class really helped me think about the world with a broadened perspective, as I now understand how our anthropocentric view of worth in society greatly impacts our relationships with animals and other living beings on this planet. It was one of those classes where you just feel like your mind is blown because the realizations that I ended with at the end of the quarter really made sense and made me think Why haven't I thought of this before? The class taught me to reach out of my comfort zone and think about the world in from a different standpoint.
It felt like I was taking philosophy, and really reminded me of IB Theory of Knowledge in high school (which was really a pain of a class but really rewarding). My teacher, Richard Block, was extremely intelligent and had a mad philosopher vibe about him. I listened closely to each sentence and I would marvel at how cleverly crafted it was. Word choice, I've learned is such a difficult part of teaching philosophy, because language is sometimes insufficient to express the true thought that we want to convey and can hinder meaning due to the many connotations and attachments that we form when we interpret something that is said. Needless to say, I found it very difficult to express my thoughts on paper and even scarier to present my thoughts to this genius professor.
My first essay in this class meant a lot to me because it was the first paper I had written in college. For my first essay, "Ovid vs. Aristotle", I received an okay grade because I did not put enough analysis in the paper. My second essay, "The Drunk Savage Creature of the Human Being", went over a lot better with the teacher because he thought I had an interesting slant to the paper because I had based my paper on the theme of alcoholism in the book The Island of Dr. Moreau, which had a very minor role in the book. Then our final paper required an incredible amount of opinion and careful analysis because our topic was "What does it mean to be human?". This was such an open ended question, which was really daunting. I had to be confident in my interpretation of the question and my thought process. In the end, I wound up getting a 4.0 on the final paper and a 4.0 in the class, which I'm really proud of. This grade was a miracle, considering how nervous I was coming into this class. Going through this class, I feel like I have gained the confidence to think critically and formulate my own opinions. The analytic and writing skills that I learned in this class can be applied to many different fields and will definitely help me in the future in areas such as medical research. Below, I have attached artifacts from this class that demonstrates my learning.
Coming into college, I was worried that my writing was not up to standard. Science and math has always been my strong suit and I have always found myself having a more difficult time with subjects such as the humanities. Finishing the class with a good grade gave me a huge boost of confidence and helped me believe that I can succeed when I try.
However, after a quarter of hanging onto every word that my genius professor said and slaving away on the essays that we were assigned, I was really glad that I took this class. The class really helped me think about the world with a broadened perspective, as I now understand how our anthropocentric view of worth in society greatly impacts our relationships with animals and other living beings on this planet. It was one of those classes where you just feel like your mind is blown because the realizations that I ended with at the end of the quarter really made sense and made me think Why haven't I thought of this before? The class taught me to reach out of my comfort zone and think about the world in from a different standpoint.
It felt like I was taking philosophy, and really reminded me of IB Theory of Knowledge in high school (which was really a pain of a class but really rewarding). My teacher, Richard Block, was extremely intelligent and had a mad philosopher vibe about him. I listened closely to each sentence and I would marvel at how cleverly crafted it was. Word choice, I've learned is such a difficult part of teaching philosophy, because language is sometimes insufficient to express the true thought that we want to convey and can hinder meaning due to the many connotations and attachments that we form when we interpret something that is said. Needless to say, I found it very difficult to express my thoughts on paper and even scarier to present my thoughts to this genius professor.
My first essay in this class meant a lot to me because it was the first paper I had written in college. For my first essay, "Ovid vs. Aristotle", I received an okay grade because I did not put enough analysis in the paper. My second essay, "The Drunk Savage Creature of the Human Being", went over a lot better with the teacher because he thought I had an interesting slant to the paper because I had based my paper on the theme of alcoholism in the book The Island of Dr. Moreau, which had a very minor role in the book. Then our final paper required an incredible amount of opinion and careful analysis because our topic was "What does it mean to be human?". This was such an open ended question, which was really daunting. I had to be confident in my interpretation of the question and my thought process. In the end, I wound up getting a 4.0 on the final paper and a 4.0 in the class, which I'm really proud of. This grade was a miracle, considering how nervous I was coming into this class. Going through this class, I feel like I have gained the confidence to think critically and formulate my own opinions. The analytic and writing skills that I learned in this class can be applied to many different fields and will definitely help me in the future in areas such as medical research. Below, I have attached artifacts from this class that demonstrates my learning.
Coming into college, I was worried that my writing was not up to standard. Science and math has always been my strong suit and I have always found myself having a more difficult time with subjects such as the humanities. Finishing the class with a good grade gave me a huge boost of confidence and helped me believe that I can succeed when I try.
